Principal, teacher help deliver baby in school bathroom. ‘I caught a baby in my hands’

The principal of a Texas elementary school encouraged a pregnant paraprofessional to go to a doctor after she said she wasn’t feeling well.

But as the staff at Cunningham Elementary School in Wichita Falls soon realized on Aug. 28, there was not enough time for that.

“Oh, she’s coming,” teacher Ashley Strain recalled Paige Lockstedt saying after her water broke at the school, according to a video shared by the Wichita Falls Independent School District.

Nurses were on the phone with 911 as Strain and the school’s principal, Amy Simmons, took the paraprofessional into a bathroom.

Moments later, a baby girl was born.

“We went to the bathroom, and I caught a baby in my hands,” Strain said.

After the birth, Simmons said staff members stood in the entryway of the building and looked at one another as if saying “this really just happened.”

First responders eventually took over, relieving Strain and Simmons of their duties.

“We ate some chocolate, because that’s a necessity at a school, and it felt like a moment where we probably needed to have a little bit of chocolate to calm down,” Simmons said. “And then we just went on with the rest of our day.”

School officials said Lockstedt and the baby are doing well.

The baby, born at 2 pounds, 9 ounces, will be kept in a hospital for a few weeks to make sure everything stays OK, the principal said.

Simmons called the baby’s delivery “100% a team effort.”

Wichita Falls is about a 115-mile drive northwest from Fort Worth.

This story was originally published August 30, 2024 at 5:35 AM with the headline "Principal, teacher help deliver baby in school bathroom. ‘I caught a baby in my hands’."